Gilad Shalit: Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange talks stalled

As the parents of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit mark their fourth Passover without their son, Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange talks that would release Sgt. Shalit have reportedly broken down over internal Hamas disagreements.

ByErin Cunningham, CorrespondentMarch 30, 2010

An Israeli woman holds a flag depicting captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, before a prayer calling for his release, in Jerusalem's Old City, Wednesday, in Israel. Hamas-allied militants captured Shalit during a cross-border raid in June 2006, and he is still being held captive. The text on the flag reads "Gilad is still alive".

A Fatah strongman and bitter enemy of Hamas, Mohammed Dahlan, was quoted in a Jordanian newspaper this week as saying that negotiations collapsed as a result of an internal split within the Hamas leadership over the terms of the deal.

The deal, if finalized, would reportedly have released Shalit in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including militants such as Wafa al-Biss – a young woman arrested on the Gaza-Israel border in 2005 with 20 pounds of explosives sewn into her underwear.

Hamas: The problem is Israel

Hamas leaders in Gaza deny claims of strife within the Islamist movement, which seized control of Gaza after routing its secular rival Fatah from the territory in 2007, saying Israel is to blame for the stalled talks with its “unacceptable offer.”

“The problem is not with us, the key to the end of this deal is with [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu,” says Hamas government spokesman, Taher al-Nounou. “He brought us back to the beginning by refusing certain points we already agreed on.”

“All Hamas leaders want is a happy end to this deal,” Mr. al-Nounou says. “There is no argument inside Hamas over this.”

Shalit was captured in June 2006 in a cross-border raid carried out by Palestinian militants – and has been held as a prisoner in the Gaza Strip by Hamas ever since.

Why lead Hamas negotiator quit

The Palestinian team’s lead negotiator and senior Hamas official, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, said in an interview with the BBC last month that he quit the talks – but said his resignation was due to Israel’s refusal to meet demands.

"As of now the process has failed," Mr. Zahar told the BBC in February. "After the involvement of Benjamin Netanyahu, it appears we have gone one step back."

The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported last month that Zahar quit the talks because of an internal Hamas dispute, which the paper says pitted the more moderate Hamas leaders in Gaza against the head of the movement’s military wing, Ahmed Jabril, and the hard-line leadership based in Damascus, Syria.